EARLY YEARS

NURSERY

It has been another magnificent two weeks here in the nursery, full of creativity, outdoor adventures, and great anticipation for the festive season ahead! We have had a wonderful time immersing ourselves in the world of Postman Bear, which inspired the children to become busy writers, crafting their own imaginative letters, cards, and invitations; we were so impressed by their creativity and the wonderful pre-writing shapes they used, and they brilliantly remembered to add a stamp before posting! 

We have put a huge focus on books recently, ensuring they are accessible in all of our learning areas, and we actively encourage the children to share them with their friends. Promoting a lifelong love of reading is truly central to everything we do, and we reinforce this daily through engaging story times and by providing a cosy book corner where the children can explore independently. Crucially, we are focusing not just on the words on the page, but on the pure joy of sharing a book, practising turning the pages carefully, and discussing the wonderful characters and pictures within. When you read at home, please remember that simply snuggling up together with a book is one of the most powerful ways to show your child that reading is a comforting experience, building a positive association that will last well beyond their time here at nursery.

Despite the unpredictable weather, we've made the most of outdoor play, practising the important skill of putting on our coats, hats, and gloves, and we had a truly fantastic and incredible opportunity to dance and play in a brief flurry of snow, catching the flakes with wonder before it sadly melted away. 

Indoors, the construction areas have been buzzing, with the children's block creations becoming more and more elaborate, often accompanied by great stories and complex processes, showing off their emerging narrative and design skills. It has been a wonderful fortnight, but the weeks to come are highly anticipated as we look forward to the magic of Christmas!

RECEPTION

What a great 2 weeks reception have had!

Over the last 2 weeks, the children have been working really hard in Literacy. We have explored 2 books so far: "Kipper's Birthday" and "Little Glow". The children thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different types of celebrations that people celebrate. When learning about Kipper, the children all received an invitation to his fun party! They RSVP'd and were lucky enough to attend his party - so much fun! 

In phonics, we have continued to learn a range of phonemes - all of which have been digraphs. The four phonemes that we have worked on are: /sh/, /th/, /ng/, /nk/. We have been super impressed with the children's oral blending of words. We are continuing to look at initial sounds when segmenting to spell and are also looking at CVC words when blending to read e.g. bell, mess, bag. We have also been practising reading different sentences altogether through blending the words. 

In maths, we have been exploring the composition of numbers (3/4/5). The children have been using part-whole models to see how numbers are made up e.g. 3 can be made up of 1 and 2, 4 can be made up of 2 and 2. To develop further, the children have been inspired by Numberblocks and have made their own stampolines for numbers 4 and 5. The children have been exploring the different patterns that can be made from the number 4 and 5.

I wonder what we will get up to next week...